The differences are striking. A one-page bill compared to what was about 150 
pages of narrative to create the MWRA. The size of Boston Harbor has changed 
dramatically over the years. The numbers of people and agencies involved in dealing with 
the Harbor has increased dramatically. What is most instructive of those two bills is that 
the complexity of this issue has dramatically increased technically, politically, and 
fiscally. 
It is probably even more instructive to go back 100 or 200 years to some of the 
early citizens of Boston who really did live beside perhaps what would be more truly 
classified as an estuary than today's Harbor. There were more mud flats and salt marshes, 
and more fresh water exchange with the Harbor, which, at that time, was not coming 
through sewage discharges either. 
One or two hundred years ago, people perceived the Harbor not as an estuary, 
unfortunately, but as a place to discard their wastes, to fill in, and to create more land. 
The early rudimentary pipes that came from individuals' homes bringing wastes into the 
nearest stream and to the Harbor were eventually culverted and covered over. We are 
left today with a legacy of antiquated systems upon which we are trying to make 
adjustments to clean up the Harbor. 
Today, we have made some progress. There has been a decision about the 
301(h) waiver. We are changing to secondary treatment barring any reversal of that 
because of a successful challenge in the court, which I hope does not happen. That, of 
course, means a number of things including a better level of sewage treatment. But it 
also requires us to look for a site with twice as much acreage. It will mean an increased 
amount of sludge as the byproduct of the treatment, and increased difficulties in finding a 
location somewhere adjacent to the Harbor where we will be able to successfully site a 
treatment plant. One of the management steps the state has taken to solve some of the 
sewage problems is the creation of the MWRA, which is charged now with finding a site 
for the new plant and moving forward with its implementation. 
Another part of the cleanup strategy in the Harbor will be dealing with CSOs, 
and I know all of you people in Washington hear the acronym CSO and think of the Coastal 
States Organization, which is what you should think of. It is the foremost group for 
representing coastal issues here in Washington with a very excellent staff. Unfortunately, 
in Boston we think of CSOs as the combined sewer overflows that contribute in some 
cases almost, at least by some estimates, as much as half of the contaminants to our 
Harbor. We need the MWRA, in combination with our state agencies and significant 
federal help, to address the CSO problem. Fortunately, we have had a 30 million dollar 
appropriation to deal with perhaps the worst of the CSOs, for example, at Fox Point 
coming out from underneath the main dock at the Savin Hill Yacht Club in Dorchester. 
That one will be cleaned up, renovated, and put back into operation. 
Another component of our cleanup strategy involves the pretreatment of 
sewage before it goes into the system. That will be a critical part of the operation no 
matter what level of treatment, where the plant is sited, or how we deal with our sludge. 
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